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(I posted this topic on the poor mans watch forum also (www.pmwf.com )

Now I know that us flashoholics have a saying, "buy 'em all', but, I am a one watch kind of guy. I have been wearing my current watch every day for like 6-7 years.

I have found ALMOST my perfect watch, it is the one I currently own, a second generation Citizen Skyhawk Titanium watch. I just re-set it, and it gained 10 seconds in 6 months, so I am pretty happy about that.

BUT, it falls short in a couple of areas:
Does not automaticly re-set for DST
Glare on Crystal
hard to read in dark
Digital display too small and too hard to read (might have something to do with my eyes, not the watch!)

The 3rd generation Citizen Skyhawk Eco Drive (and similar) are close to what I am looking for, but no Tritium arms or hour markers, and once I viewed a Tritium watch in the dark, everything else pales in comparision (pun intended!)

one thing to consider though. for my case, i use one of my (many) atomic G-Shocks as my daily alarm. but if i am using it as my daily alarm, i would turn off the auto atomic update. because by the time i need it to change to DST, i need to know that its 100% reliable ALL THE TIMES. at my location, atomic reception is about 80-90% successful. so in something like 2 weeks, it will have at least 1 to 2 days that it doesn't receive signal.

and if i am using it as my daily alarm, i need it to be right EVERYTIME. so i simply set the DST manually to avoid being one hr late that sunday morning .. LOL

having said that, i totally dig atomic and would pick G-Shock with atomic over those that doesn't have it. its just a great feeling knowing that your watch is VERY accurate ... almost all the times. haha~

or maybe you can go with some Japan only Attesa. but they are closer to the $1k range. they are very nice watch indeed. not quite or almost out of poor-man-watches though

I think the closest you'll get is the Citizen Skyhawk AT titanium. Titanium case and bracelet, eco driver, atomic clock sync, analog and digital readouts, decent lume on the analog hands and a backlight for the digital, plenty of bells and whistles (countdown timer, alarms, stopwatch, world time, etc...) and it automatically adjusts for DST if you program it to do so.

The only thing it lacks is tritium and I find that with a backlight and decent lume I don't have any nighttime visibility issues with my stainless Skyhawk AT.

I echo the comments of previous poster's: I never found one watch with all of what you are looking for. I ran across Ball when I was looking and I liked them so much that I settled on 2 watches to fulfill all of the requirements. The G-Shock is also excellent because is sync's with WWVB everyday and with solar, it's about as close as one can come with a forget-about-me watch and still know that it will be perfect (time/date/power) when I put it on.

That is about the only "reasonable" (and some would argue that) priced watch I can think of off the top of my head that has the trit's you want.
It lacks the bells & whistles of the higher end Citizen eco drive line though. Also a little on the chunky side.

Pretty hard to beat the better eco drive watches (particularly the screw crown 20bar models) for reliability, feature set & value. I have not found anything that compares & have more expensive stuff that just sits now.

Good luck & let us know if you find that ideal watch. Plenty of watch hounds here will be interested.

+1 for the Skyhawk AT, I have the SS version and it's great, Also it is one of the very few (Non JDM watches) you can have Citizen replace the Mineral Crystal with a Saphire one for just under $100.00. One Thing about the AT is the ana hands are full lume not cut out so you can actually see them in the dark. it is not as good as the iso diver models but very readable without using the backlight for the digital.

I've had the Skyhawk AT for a few years now and agree that it's "almost there". Tritium, a better backlight on the LCD (Indiglo-like), and a sapphire crystal on the export variant would make it perfect. I'm still looking for that watch you describe, BuddTX!

It's a possibility IF it really works easily and every time. The trouble is salespeople who sell Casio know nothing about the product so I would have to know the model that has the features I want. I usually prefer analog because I can read it without glasses. If I go digital I will need huge numbers.... So I guess I will look up atomic casio with autolight and see what I can find. It is too expensive to have a jeweler add tritium. I already have a Reactor watch with tritium at 12, 6, and 9 but believe it or not I sometimes cannot tell 7:30 from 8:30 at a quick glance. I know now I need tritium at all 12 positions plus the hands.

There's a range of motion that will activate the auto LED, with practice you should be able to light up easily. But it may also light up when you don't need it to, like when I turn the steering wheel with my hand on top of the steering wheel, that will light up the LED for me ...

There's a range of motion that will activate the auto LED, with practice you should be able to light up easily. But it may also light up when you don't need it to, like when I turn the steering wheel with my hand on top of the steering wheel, that will light up the LED for me ...

I've been using a Casio with analog hands and fairly discrete digital display (and numerous digital functions). It has an EL backlight that can be activated by tilting the watch. I played around with that feature, and figured I'd just end up draining the battery with it, so I disabled it per the manual's instructions.

It's been a good watch and rather affordable. When the watch band wore out, it was cheaper to buy a new watch than buy a new watch band. The only downside is the soft material used for the "crystal", or watch face. I just put a layer of clear packing tape over it to protect it from random scratches, and it works for me. This is common to a lot of Caisio's watches.

Thanks again. I went into the Mall today to two different stores. The Casios were too big and gaudy for me. The lights on the analog were not bright enough anyway. The only ones I liked were the analog chronometers and they don't have any backlighting according to salesperson.